one day to go...

and I am still 1.5KG away...

and to make it worst, I was h.u.n.g.r.y and was not content with the 2 slices of bread I had. Therefore...

and you know what, i just realised that i actually am fond of lemongrass.. I never knew that it is the lemongrass that made me liked tomyam, masak kuning and others. The flavor is just something that suits my tastebud.

This is lunch. I made a deal with Rizal , if I loose 2kg during his absence, I'm gonna get something .... Hehe apalagi, so dengan berkobar-kobar i've skipped bfast, and now eating light lunch. And tis arvo i plan to jog.. Then swim to cool off... Haha see how

I need a 'Tastera'

you know what people should invent next? a Tastera

A device that can capture taste. I had the best asam pedas daging today, cooked to perfection, just the way I like it. Its been ages since I had asam pedas daging, I think the last time I had it was when I was in my teens. Uwan sometimes make it, and to date, I havent been able to find any place / anyone who could beat uwan's Asam Pedas daging.

Of course I have asked uwan for the recipe, and of course I have attempted it. And each time, it became more failure than the last. The only way to actually learn it, I guess is by buying all the ingredient and make uwan physically show me. Which is a rather difficult, cos I hardly get to see and lepak with uwan these days. And when I do actually have the time to see the ol lady, I cant be expecting her to do chores. On top of that, Ayah cant take meat, so to cook it in my parents house is kinda unlikely. Kesian Ayah if he cant eat it. But I think I will have to make the effort. Maybe one of these days.

Back to what I was saying earlier, there I was at the restaurant having the Asam Pedas Daging, just the way uwan made it, I was thinking desperately how great it would have been if there was a device that can tell me what is the ingredient to that dish. I bet, if such device exist, it would beat Ipod, DSLR or iPad easily. It would have been easily been voted as the coolest gadget on earth. Imagine, to just be able to dip a device into a dish, and bam.... all the ingredients are listed, with EXACT measurements!. How cool is that..

But of course such item does not exist, and so I had to just resort to examining each of the visible item in there. What I can deduce, ada lemongrass, ada daun limau, blended cili (presumably cili merah), ada rasa masam2 sikit which I think could be from assam jawa. That is all that I could surmise. How much to put, how long to cook, what other to put, all is a mystery to me.

So today, I made a promise to myself, one of these day, I will take leave, and I will get uwan to teach me how to make it!!!! Let us pray that it will be a reality soon and I can capture the recipe here for the benefit of all.

Till then..... sabar sabar aje la... sigh........

Sigh.....

UPDATE: I have found a recipe on the net, though it is for tetel, I think meat would substitue just fine. Will try it one day

http://mycikgumas.blogspot.com/2010/03/belajar-memasak-asam-pedas-daging.html

My korean CDs

 

My collection of korean cds!! specially brought in from Seoul

The Backup Plan & Despicable Me

Last week we watched two movies: The backup Up plan and Despicable Me.

The Backup Plan
I didnt have high expectation on this movie cos many reviews rated this movie badly. Having no other movies to watch, we decided to just go for it.

In my opinion, the movie wasnt that bad. I didnt like the beginning part, cos I thought JLo was being over perasan a bit. Granted, I loved how she looked tall and slim in the movie, made me wished I am back in my ol' size..

Thank God the movie moving along for the better as it progressed. It wasnt totally funny, but there are few amusing scenes.

Overall, the movie is quite ok to me. Maybe I'll rate it 5.5 over 10.



Despicable Me
Watched this one last saturday. I still cant quite decide if I liked this movie or not. For a movie classified in comedy category, this one didnt really tickle me. Sure, there were few funny parts, but I thought not enough.

My rating? erm, 4 over 10 kot.

iPad... where art thou?

I want an iPad!!!!!!!

Hisham came over last weekend and I asked him to bring along his iPad. Best sungguh jadi Hisham ni, ada je dapat all sorts of sponsored gadget. Maybe I should ask him to sell it to me. But then, I need to save money.... Hmm. Camana tu.

Anyway, after seeing and holding it meself, I was surprised to find that it is smaller than what I thought. For some reason I actually thought that it is like an A4 size. Anyway, so it is slightly smaller than I thought but it is still a good size. Especially to browse internet and read books. I didnt try playing game cos he didnt have any games on his. So I cant say much of how it would be though I have a feeling that it would be even better than ipod touch.

The beauty of ipad is that you can actually connect using 3G and wifi. So if I have a sim, I can practically access from anywhere. Even at Yusof, on the road, anywhere. Lovely!

Invader!!

Sorry folks. I wanted to blog tonight but my notebook has been taken hostage. Sigh.

Carwash

This is my car wash shop

Apple with Cream Cheese

While I am at it, I continued my meal with one of my favorite dessert / snacks..

Maybe its the cool weather, what a lovely sunday... :)


Ops back to the Apple Cream Cheese.. Its so easy to make. All you need is:


Apple (as crunchy as possible)

Cream Cheese



Cut both Cream Cheese and apples into cubes, and put it all in a bowl


That's it!!!

Its sooo yummy, the way I like to eat it, I take one piece of apple with one piece of the cheese. Superb. The sweetness of the apple mixed with the creamy taste of the cheese... just heavenly.

~~
Btw, you could also substitute the Cream Cheese with Strawberry CheeseCake from Baskin Robbins.


it is a must try, you won't regret it

Thai Fish Cake (Tod Mun Pla)

I fell inlove with Thai fish cake was when I was studying in Sydney. This friend of ours (of Thai origin but born and bred aussie) whose parent runs Thai restaurant in North Sydney have been generous to provide us with authentic Thai food. Every now and then, when we were studying or doing our group assignments, he would order in food from his parents restaurant. One of the must-haves was Thai fishcake.

After coming back here, I noticed that most of our local Tomyam restaurant (yg bukak malam2 tu) dont have it on their menu. Only the posh dine in ones like Sri Ayutthaya have them, usually as starters. But the price... er.. lets just say, not really the kinda money I would want to pay for the 2-3 miserable pieces.

Anyway, since it is not easy to come by, I thought I would try and make it myself, since I have one siakap been sitting in my freezer for more than two weeks already and no longer fresh enough for steam fish. So dengan gigihnya I went on the net to search the recipe for Thai Fish Cake, or Tod Mun Pla (in thai).

There are quite a number of recipes found, ranging from as easy as 2-3 ingredients to complicated ones with one whole page of steps and ingredients. I decided to mix and match the recipe, keeping the main ingredients (which found on most recipe) and adding here and there.

What I came up with:

Blend well:
-white fish flesh (taken whole from Siakap)
-corn flour, about 2 teaspoons
-1 beaten egg
-kaffir lime leaves (2-3 pieces, sliced thinly before blend)
-roughly chopped coriander leaves
-thinly sliced lemon grass (very little, like 6-7 slices)
-tumeric powder (1 1/2 teaspoon)
-cilipadi 2 biji (sliced thinly)

Once it was blended well, add in the thinly sliced green bean.

Make it into balls, and then flatten before frying in pan

And the result.... Wallla....



Reviews...

Me: 'hmmm.. not bad.. at least the taste is there'

rizal said ...' wow.. i'm impressed...'

So I guess jadi la jugak my first attempt of Thai fish cake. Next time boleh cuba lagi, and perfecting it.

p/s sorry I didnt snap any photos of the cooking process, kitchen and me were quite messy, plus I wasnt sure if it turned out alright. Next I promise there will be photos, and exact measurements of the ingredients. Yg kat atas tu, main hentam je...

Assam Fish

Dont know why, dah sampai mood nak memasak aje pulak. I have been eating home cooked meal for the past 3 days. These few days I feel soooo malas to eat out and felt sick of restaurant food.

It all stemmed from this article I read in the paper few days back, about the alarming number of Malaysian contracting TB, and all sort of other diseases which is usually a norm in poorer country. In that article, they blamed it on the rise of foreign workers who never had any compulsory jabs like us in Malaysia. The article was also suggesting that most of these foreign workers 's heatlh screen is also questionable - since it is a known fact that some of these foreign worker were not even legal and came in through tongkang and what not.

As many of our restaurateur today employ foreign worker ( whom may have been infected by these diseases) , we the customer of course also are exposed to it - since they prepared the food we are eating, etc etc.

After reading that article I became wary of eating out, takut + rasa geli nak makan pulak when thinking about it.
So today, I plan to cook again. The menu today, ikan siakap.
The fish is not exactly fresh, dah ada lama dalam fridge tu, so I cant exactly make steamfish as I normally would. Nak makan macam kari2 or gulai2, macam dah boring pulak cos had those 2-3 hari ni.

Then, ,teringat la pulak Nyonya assamfish, so as usual - googled it on the net.

I found a few recipes that look promising:


RECIPE NO 1

Ingredients
Kurau (Snapper) Fish Cut or Stingray, deep fried until golden brown.
Tamarind Juice from a table spoon of tamarind paste, add water to bring out the juice
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste
Blend
Shallots, 5 pcs
Fresh Kunyit (Turmeric), 1" (You can also use turmeric powder, 1 table spoon)
Fresh Chillies , 5 pcs (or chilli powder, 1 table spoon)
Belachan, 1"x1/2"x1/2"
Serai (Lemongrass), 2 stalks

Methods
Heat up 3 table spoons of oil in hot wok and sautéed the blended paste until fragrant. Add a cup of water and bring to a boil. Add tamarind juice, sugar and salt to taste. Put in the fried fish and let it cook for a short while. Serve dish with steamed white rice.



RECIPE NO 2

Ingredients
3 mackerel
5 tbsp paste from Mom's Chili Prawns
1 rounded tbsp tamarind (asam pulp)
water
sugar
salt or light soya sauce

Methods
1. Clean the fish and season it with salt or light soya sauce.
2. Prepare the tamarind marinade: soak the tamarind pulp in 120 ml of warm water for 5 minutes. Squeeze the seeds and fiber with your fingers to extract as much juice and flavor as possible. Strain and discard fibers.
3. Heat wok with oil till hot, stir-fry the chili paste for a minute medium heat till fragrant.
4. Add water to the paste, stir to mix it well.
5. Stir in the tamarind juice (according to your taste of sourness).
6. Season it with light soya sauce or salt and a little bit of sugar .
7. Put in the fish to cook when you are about ready to serve dinner. This is to avoid overcooking the fish. The fish is cooked once its eyes popped.
8. Serve it with rice and a plate of vegetables by the side.



RECIPE NO 3

Ingredients
# 1 ikan siakap (800g)
# 60g dried chilli paste

To blend:
# 20g turmeric (kunyit)
# 20g galangal (lengkuas)
# 30g lemon grass (serai)
# 10g shallot
# 10g garlic

Cut into small pieces:
# 20g ladies fingers
# 20g eggplant
# 20g onion
# 20g tomato
# 10g belacan
# 20ml assam jawa juice
# 1 lime (squeeze for juice)
# salt and sugar to taste

Method
Clean the fish. Heat wok with a little oil and add all the blended ingredients, chilli paste and belacan. cook for five minutes. Add assam jawa juice, lime juice and cut vegetables (ladies fingers, eggplant, onion and tomato).

Steam ikan siakap until cooked. Pour the assam jawa juice on the fish. In a medium hot oven, bake the fish which has been steamed earlier for two to three minutes so that the sauce is absorbed into the fish. Serve fish with hot rice.



p/s tak jadi masak... makan kat usop je in the end. Will update once tried

Ketam masak kuning

Rasa macam dah lama tak blog about food and new recipes.

This one is not a new try, I have made it before and today when I wanted to make it again I kinda forgot how-to. Had to call uwan again to ask her for the right way to make it.

Ketam is one of favorite food, and I could sit for hours eating it! You know the best kind of crab to me is the ones that you savour at home, in front of the telly with a good show. Superb!!

Anyway as to not forget how to make one of my all-time favorite I am going to note it down here.

What you need:
Cilipadi (pounded) x 1 tablespoon - if prefer spicy can add more
lemongrass (pounded) x 3
kunyit x 1 teaspoon
santan x 1 box
and the ketam of course x 2 (halves it)

How to make:

It is quite easy to make it, all you need to do is put in the cilipadi, lemongrass, kunyit and santan into the wok. Wait up until it boil two times (stir a bit in between)



add in the ketam and let it boil some more. If the ketam is those with thicker shell, let it cook longer, otherwise, once it is comes to boil, then it is ready



yum yum yum.... yeah yeah i know.. I know I should be looking out for my health and bla bla bla.. but with Ketam on the menu, who cares about cholesterol huh?

bon appétit!

m.a.n.d.i

Today MissyVios had its first wash.

Unfortunately didnt bring my camera, so no photos to share here.

For today's wash, I requested for wash + vacuum, complete with Sparing Wax + dashboard polish. The total cost: RM33

The breakdown:

• wash RM4
• vacuum RM4
• Sparing Wax RM 15
• Dashboard polish RM10

It was well worth the money cos 'adik' now is gleaming and so wangi. I had it done at this carwash shop in Pandan Jaya, one of the best I've been to.

For those who would like to try, you can refer to the map below

View Larger Map

will try and snap a photo of the shop later on

ta!

my new ride

I have had my car for almost a week now. It surely is different than princess.

I am kinda short of time here, so I'll just summarise what I like and dunlike ...

what I like
- it is quite responsive than I expected. Going uphill is a slight push, but not so noticeable
- feels light. Not sure if I like or not, cos I am used to the feeling of heaviness in princess
- ada emergency kit, ada emergency triangle. and first aid kit. ekceli belum bukak, so dun really know whats in it
- seat is quite comfy
- behind cabin is more spacious than I tot
- ada mute button at the audio system


what i didnt expect :
- quite noisy , tot it was quieter
- basic audio. Ada ke the equaliser is set to presets of : Compact, Sedan, Minivan. Not sure if this is a joke or what???
- No RDS. On off from the Off button
- display is really basic. No date, no indictor of how many km left of fuels


Whatever it is, I think I am yet to get used to it and once I have I think I would enjoy it more.

Anyhoot.... introducing for the first time in Fluff BomBom... (err... takde nama yet... so far only panggil 'adik' , and bonjot is now officially 'abang' . Why? cos both are black machines... so macam adik beradik.. ... erk logic ke??)

Ipoh PART II

Though it was such a short trip, tak sangka there are a lot to share here. Hence the additional post on Ipoh, PART II. This a continuation from Ipoh PART I

Anyway, sambung cerita Ipoh, after we left Kellie's Castle we headed back towards Route 1 southbound to get to Gua Tempurung. It was not difficult to find the entrance to Gua Tempurung as there are many signs a long the way. Roughly only about 20mins drive from Kellie's Castle I think.

Sampai kat Tempurung Cave, I wore my snickers siap2, cos tamau la masuk cave with Heeled Sandals. Tak pasal2 jatuh pulak. We went straight to the ticketing counter to get more information and leaflets, while makan at the gerai there.

So here is the leaflet (click on it for bigger image):

Tanya2 kat org tu, he said, it is best to go for option 3. Option 1, which is just a quick tour around the cave apparently is nothing much. So... we decided that we wont do Tempurung Cave today, but will come back soon some other weekend. Lagipun tak fun kalau tak dapat masuk2 sungai all that.

I didnt snap any photos around there, cos I will do that when we go for the actual Tempurung Cave trip.

Along the way we passed many many of these ex-mining lake, some of which were just fantastic, especially the ones with lots of lotus plant. Unfortunately I didnt get any shot of those ones. I only managed to get this one, which is also turned into a fishing/recreational lake.


After that, off we went - headed for Tapah to get back to the highway. Then... adala pulak sign to Lata Kinjang!! Apa lagi... I asked Rizal to make the turn. It is about 8km from the main route (route 1), and it is quite easy to access. The road actually take you all the way to the foot of the waterfall.

Parking are available, and there are also gerai and basic amnenities.

As it was the weekend, so the place was a bit crowded, especially at the lower side. He hiked up a bit, there are concrete steps and all, so no need to worry. The steps are not all the way to the top though. It stops there where there is a hangning bridge. We took a dip at the topmost accessible area. There were still a lot people, but at least not as crowded as at the base.

While here, I remembered my Trolak days, I remember coming to this waterfall with Farah, Gunn, Siti and Dura. But those days we actually went all the way to the top, like the top most area past the concrete stairs and all the way up to where the pump station is. That trip was somewhat memorable, because when we were happily taking our dips, Siti was swept away by the strong water. Punyala pucat all of us. Nasib baik she fell into one of the water pool. Until today I could still hear my heart beating faster thinking about it. Anyway, maybe because of that traumatic experience, I dare not to be too adventurous when I was there last weekend, especially since I have to be on my own in the water (cos Rizal has to take care of our belongings).

In all honesty I think this waterfall is too strong and too high to my likings, I think I prefer Lata Iskandar much better.

Macamanapun.. after taking our dips, its time to go. Also took the opportunity to take some shots. The verdict: I still am not so good at capturing waterfalls.. but I think it is a bit improvement than last time

From Ipoh quick getaway

Ipoh maliiii.....

With no more movies to watch at the cinema, and nothing else much to do over the weekend, we decided to go for a quick getaway last weekend.

It was kinda of an impromptu decision, and only decided on it late on Saturday evening - after we have done a few errands here and there.

Since dah lambat, not much options are there. I wanted to go to Bukit Larut aka Maxwell Hill, but there are no shuttle service going up to the hills after 6pm, so this one is out. That leaves us with just Ipoh, or Melaka.

Having seen and visited Melaka quite a number of times, I opted for Ipoh instead. I have always wanted to explore this sleepy town, especially after passing through it everytime we are going and coming back from Penang. I have read a number of good pleasing reviews about hidden gems of Ipoh too and thought it would be a good chance to explore it.

So, we left KL around 9, after dinner. Before leaving I made a few calls to book our accomodation. Initially we thought of staying at Railway station hotel (so that I could snap photos of this ol building) but after looking at the actual room photos on the web, we were both like... errr... takpe la kot. I then googled other hotels and started making the calls. And guess what, I was so so surprised to find that ALL of the hotels I called were fully booked! I mean WHAT is there in Ipoh???? Out of options, I called Railway hotel - which is actually called and run by Majestic Hotel and as fate would have it, they have one last room available. Since dah takde choice, we just took it.

We took one slow leisurely drive and reached Ipoh (S) toll around 11.30PM. Not knowing where exactly is this Majestic hotel, we just followed signs and luckily, they do have signs of 'Stesyen Keretapi' along the way. To get there from the highway, we had to pass through Ipoh town, seriously memang dead city - except for the petaling street like road somewhere in the middle of the town.
Though we managed to find the hotel quite easily, getting to it was another story. Ipoh ni full of one way street... so pusingla satu Ipoh again before we could actually get to the train station entrance - which in actual fact a blessing in disguise, cos we got a peek of all those heritage buildings of Ipoh. Kinda keep me excited :)

Majestic hotel as expected was nothing much. After all it is only RM88 per night. But I have to say it was quite good for whats offered. Of course it is just basic, but it is extremely clean, and the room and toilet are of ample size. If only they put a more classy curtains and bedsheets, I think it would have done wonders.

I didnt waste any time but started snapping here and there that night itself. Sadly though, not much turned out nice. Nevertheless enjoy..







The next morning, more photos taken...











After check out, we went around Ipoh town again to snap more photos..

The St Michael's Institution - one of the premier school in Ipoh - built in 1912.

from wiki: St Michael


After seeing a bit of Ipoh, we made a move towards Gopeng, where the Tempurug Cave is. We passed through several suburbs like Tg Rambutan... Sg Kinding (where they are selling land 45000sqft + bungalow house for RM3++k - amazing huh?), IGB industrial area, some place called Klebang... etc... After going on about an hour or so... You know what?? we ended up back in Ipoh town. It turned out we took wrong turning somwhere and actually have been just going around Ipoh town.... so... last last.. masuk highway balik nak pergi Batu Gajah... hehehe

We exited at Simpang Pulai, and took route 1. By this time, I already acquired the Petak map, so ada la guidance sikit.


About 10 minutes from the Simpang Pulai exit, we passed through this Cave temple. I don't what is the name of this temple, but apparently it has been for a long time, even when Rizal was still small, cos he remembers it as one of the landmark he'd see on his trips to KL (dulukan takde highway). Sadly the bottom of this at the entrance they built shoplots but it was deserted, and became an eyesore instead. Rizal said it wasnt like this last time , I feel that they should have just destroy it since no one is actually occupying. There are also no more pomelo gerais like it used to be before.. so sad..


Anyway, on the map, there was also indicators of Tourist attractions. One of which is Kellie's Castle. Having read about it in travel columns some time back, I have always wanted to see it and so asked Rizal to make a quick detour to see it for myself.

I was happy we did cos Kellie's Castle is a really nice place. See some of the photos I took...










you should read the history of this place at wiki - more about Kellie's_Castle


************************************************************************************

I wanted to complete this post in one go, but my head is refusing to co-operate. So I guess I will just have to continue the rest of my journey in PART II

Till then... ta

Killers

I was laughing through out the movie, and I have to say this is one of the best Ive seen this year.

Its about a young CIA Spencer who fell in love with the next door girl Jen. Spencer quit his fast-paced life to lead a normal life with Jen. They live happily after
until the past catches up with Spencer. His old boss came seeking for him, and apparently he has a bounty of 20M on his head.



Needless to say all that came as a shock to Jen and all the people around them whom they thought are their friends are actually secret agents or hitman of sorts.

I love the unexpected jokes and the combination of Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl (who are my fav actor n actress) just added to my joy.

All in all, if you are in for a good light humourous movie, this one is a winner.

note:
:) :) still cant stop smiling till now ...